DENVER – These obviously are not the Nets that Kenyon Martin remembers.

Martin recalls a championship-caliber team wielding an offense that could score on anyone and a defense that could stifle anyone. Oh, there are remnants of those teams, but the Nets team that will limp in here with a five-game losing streak tonight against surging Denver won’t be laden with Martin’s talented pals. Martin, traded in an offseason financial move, won’t take pleasure in the Nets’ plight, although he sees a mess.

“You look at what we had and look now at – if you want to say it – the people they’ve gotten to replace me. I don’t see it,” said Martin, who’s averaging 14.5 points and 8.1 rebounds – numbers that would bring him the status of a deity in New Jersey. “But it’s what they have. It’s what they have to work with.

“They [his close friends] are gone,” Martin added yesterday. “We were all close, but the guys I hung out with the most were Lucious [Harris], Donny [Marshall] when [he] was there, Rodney [Rogers], RJ [Richard Jefferson]. Of course, J. Kidd. We were like family.”

Kidd is rehabbing, leaving only Jefferson active among Martin’s former circle. The biggest difference? The once-elite Nets are now 2-7.

“I’m a bigger man than to wish they don’t play well,” said Martin, who had a Thanksgiving feast planned at his house last night for former and new teammates. “They’re in the East. They’re not affecting me one way or the other.”

New Jersey’s loss, of course, has quickly become Denver’s gain. “Kenyon brings a level of energy and competitiveness that in some ways is unparalleled,” said Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe.

And of course, the Nets have drastically missed Kidd.

“You take a player like Jason Kidd out of the lineup, that hurts,” said coach Jeff Bzdelik, who’s expecting a slowdown game against his Nuggets, winners of three straight and four of their last five. “He’s the heart and soul of the Nets.”